Davy Jones on the set of the television show The Monkees in December 1967Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images

Last updated at 12:01AM, March 1 2012

Manchester-born lead singer of the Monkees, the four-strong US band formed for television who were intended to rival the Beatles

In 1966 American television executives, desperate for a home-grown alternative
to the Beatles, decided to put together their own group from scratch. The
result was the Monkees and, incongrously given the genesis of the plan, the
lead singer was English. Davy Jones, born in Manchester, proved to be the
perfect teenage heart-throb they had been seeking.

The concept of the programme, which first appeared on US screens in September
1966 and was quickly exported to the UK, was that the four Monkees — Jones
plus Peter Tork, Mike Nesmith and Mickey Dolenz — lived together and had
weekly “adventures”. The idea was